Hi.

Jun 13 Ali Edwards // Week 23

Happy Wednesday! Today is release day for the July-themed Ali Edwards Stories by the Month kit. Loved the travel theme and being able to tell the story of an amazing trip we took in the Summer of 2014. These kits include 4x6 and 3x4 journalling cards, chipboard embellishments, and a 3x4 stamp set. Here's the spread I put together using this month's kit:

You can see the elements of this kit are travel-themed. I really loved the colors this month, pretty versatile, but absolutely perfect for telling beach stories. So, this was a family trip we took to St. Lucia in 2014, Ava was just about to turn two. It's a completely different experience documenting a trip that took place so long ago. I have a few distinct memories and general impressions, but the majority of the details have been forgotten. I guess ideally I'd have a separate album for this trip or even a few spreads, but the reality is that I only had a few decent photos and a few stories to tell...one 12 x 12 spread worked perfectly. Looking through the photos I could find, it really struck me how much memory keeping has changed the way I take photos, for the better. The things I look for and even making more of an effort to get myself in the picture. Out of all the photos I found, there were maybe three of me (and about 5,000 of Ava).

I like using the quote cards that Ali always includes for my title card. Her selections always resonate with me and are so appropriate for each month's theme. I used white letter stickers to spell St. Lucia and a thin strip of vellum adhered with the tiny attacher and stamped with the trip dates. Super simple embellishing for this spread. I almost always use every single piece of chipboard that's included in these kits. The black "bring on the adventure," the salmon colored "memories," and the sea foam "traveling with you" are all chipboard pieces adhered with the sticker backing. The "memories" 3x4 card includes journaling I printed in vellum and then stamped with the date and "beautiful" from her travel phrases stamp set (part of the recent Travel Release). The "travel stories" stamp on teh bottom left 4x6 card was probably my favorite stamp from this kit.

For the right side of this spread I hand-wrote "the stuff I want to remember" card. In the middle row, I trimmed the middle 4x6 photo of the hotel spa to two 3x4 cards. I've been doing this pretty often, not really intentionally, but I do like the look it adds to certain spreads. The "adventure no." card is more journaling done on vellum and another stamp from the travel phrases stamp set I mentioned above. On the bottom left 4x6 card I adhered a strip of three 2x2 photographs. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't have as many stories from this trip as I normally do, so it was great to find ways to include more photos without a stark photo album feel. I hope you liked this spread. I have to say it was a bittersweet one to put together, it's hard to see my little girl when she was so little and think of how much she's grown. Sob! Lte me know if you have any questions abou tthis one. Have a great day!